


Human

by Reign_of_Rayne



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Android Bucky, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Mild Horror, Walking, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reign_of_Rayne/pseuds/Reign_of_Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something crunched under his boot and he bent down, picking it up with metal fingers and angling it so it caught the light.<br/>It was an old snow globe, broken at its base but now irreparably shattered.  Some of the fake snow was still inside but it leaked out as he held it.<br/><span>"Что я делаю?"</span> the man muttered, tossing the globe back to the street.  He glanced up at the midday sun, adjusted the cloth protecting his face, and resumed walking.  He did not look at the graveyard around him.  He did not look around at all.<br/>-<br/>After a war that devastated the entire planet, Bucky wandered the wastelands with no destination in mind, just the need to keep moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I have no idea where this came from, but it happened. There are mentions of suicidal thoughts/actions, mild body horror (modifications), so please, if anything like that will upset you, don't read this.  
> Hover over words for translations. And know that I don't speak Russian, and Google translate is like that drunk cousin that will either help you or screw you over for fun.  
> On that note, enjoy!

There was sand between the plates of his fingers. There was sand in his boots, under his shirt, in his hair. He could taste it on his tongue and feel it grinding between his teeth. It chafed at his skin and wormed its way under his goggles. It slid down his sleeves and into his gloves.

It was everywhere.

The wind whipped it through the air. The ruined monoliths that had once been skyscrapers were nothing but hollow vessels keening with every wind current that blew through them, doing nothing to shield the cracked and broken streets from the encroaching desert.

The deafening silence of the abandoned city roared in every broken window and empty storefront.

Watery sunlight shone down between red clouds, illuminating the rusted vehicles lining the roads and splashing across the broken glass that hadn’t been buried in dust and sand already.

Something crunched under his boot and he bent down, picking it up with metal fingers and angling it so it caught the light.

It was an old snow globe, broken at its base but now irreparably shattered. Some of the fake snow was still inside but it leaked out as he held it.

"Что я делаю?" the man muttered, tossing the globe back to the street. He glanced up at the midday sun, adjusted the cloth protecting his face, and resumed walking. He did not look at the graveyard around him. He did not look around at all.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know how long he had been walking for. His mind told him the exact numbers from when his mental clock had started: Eleven years, three months, ten days, eight hours, forty-three minutes, and thirteen seconds.

Fourteen. Fifteen.

But there was time before that. Before his mind was so accurate and his body so durable.

Before the Fall.

 

* * *

 

His mind could count numbers and recite facts but the real memories did not come so easily. The memories of Before, before the war and the labs and the men with knives.

He knew his name, and the name of one other. He knew some things, could recall the smell of grass and sunshine smiles. But those things were precious. They were stored away somewhere deep, left alone until circumstances demanded the resurgence of the man buried beneath the layers of skin and metal. He could not bring them up for fear they would slip away.

If they were left alone for long enough, would they disappear?

 

* * *

 

Desert had shifted to plains had shifted to scrublands had shifted to forests. Most of the trees were still young, barely a decade old. A small stream connected to a lake several miles east trickled past on his right. He had already taken the time to wash, and finally being free of the sand brought a strange feeling to his body.

Relief.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings anew.

“Как я сюда попал?”

He shook his head. That was a stupid question. He had walked. Walked and walked and walked until his boots were breaking and he had to make a new pair from scavenged supplies.

The forest was quiet, but not silent. If he listened, he could hear the faint scrabbles of movement and rustles of animals in the underbrush.

But he could not hear voices. There were no people.

Of course there were no people. The war was his last time seeing a person, and that had been eleven years ago.

Most people were dead now. He knew he wasn’t alone; statistics made that a certain impossibility, but he had yet to find anyone.

He sat heavily on a fallen log, so rotten and old that for a moment it almost didn’t hold his weight. Then it settled and he put his head in his hands. The memories were coming uncalled, and he could not pack them away anymore.

“Нет,” Bucky muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Я не хочу их. Я не хочу их.  I do not want them."

The words rolled off his tongue in several languages but he wasn’t consciously aware of the switches when they happened. Shudders wracked his body and the motors in his metal arm whirred loudly enough to startle away the small animal drawn by his unusual scent.

Its panicked flight was enough to snap Bucky out of his trance and he stood.

He looked around again.

His mind could tell him where he was. But he didn’t need it; he knew this place in his bones, even without the snow and ice that had covered it before. He walked through the trees with grim purpose and came to the cliff, memory fueling him when the overgrown trails faltered. Without hesitation he dropped down, using his metal arm to slow his fall until he came to the derelict train tracks cutting through the gorge.

They had not been used in a long time.

Forty-two years, six monts, five days, ten hours, twenty minutes, one second.

The Fall.

His body shuddered, but he could not identify a physical cause. His legs would not work properly and he sat without meaning to, the rusted metal digging into his thighs.

After that—the ice, the cold, the white that turned his vision black—

The war. Taking his limbs, his body, salvaging what could be saved and replacing everything else. One limb lost entirely but the rest they could repurpose. He would have use again, he could walk, he could see and speak and _be_ —

A weapon. He was a weapon, programmed to fight in the War against the other side, a conflict that had been going on for centuries and he was just the latest in line, a soldier caught behind enemy lines and made into their super soldier, twisted to the point he didn’t know right from wrong until—

The memories that had been boxed away had come back after the world broke apart against itself. War meant nothing when there were no sides left to fight and he had wandered, gradually remembering more than basic function and traveling without a destination.

But he did have a destination. Had.

This place. What was he supposed to find? Besides painful echoes and certainty that he could not be what he was.

Looking down gave him vertigo, but jumping down to the tracks had not. This was vertigo from a different source, a deeper dislike he could easily trace. The Fall was his end, and everything after that was designed to unmake him.

To kill Bucky Barnes. To replace him.

Bucky smiled grimly. “Too bad,” he said. “I’m still alive.”

He had no pulse, no brain activity. No heart, no brain. But he was alive, and the parts keeping him going were easy to maintain and replace. He had been designed to be unbeatable.

An immortal soldier.

But there was no war.

He examined the metal arm, the part that had no skin covering it because the original limb had been lost to the white, its skin unusable. The arm was dirty from being used in his descent, but the metal still shone beneath the dirt.

If he did find a person, what would they think of him? He looked human but knew he wasn’t, knew that they had stripped that away from him alongside his will and mind.

Would they run?

Would he let them?

“Y’know, Steve, I would almost prefer to just keep walking. Didn’t have to do all this damn thinking, then. Just walk and walk until my body gave out. But it wouldn’t give out, would it? How did you phrase it—right. ‘I don’t work like that anymore’.” Bucky flexed his fingers. His voice sounded rusty, but talking was soothing.  Even if no one was around to hear. “Neither do I, now.”

His only response was the low moan of the wind through the rock walls. Above, the sun shone down with light harsh enough to burn. Before the war, there had been snow here; winter and spring and late fall all contributing to layers of ice and frost.

But the world was warmer now and ice was just a white space in his memory.

There were so many spaces. Some of them white. Most of them red.

If he started walking again, he would lose himself. Bucky would return to the box and the shell would keep searching for hints and clues of a past better left buried. As though the War had not buried everything already.

“God, this is so maudlin,” Bucky muttered, getting to his feet.

And then he remembered. There was—

The facility. Where he had been—

Made? Unmade?

It was close. He could find something there. People, maybe. Places where people could be.

He looked around, fixed the railroad tracks in his mind, and began walking.

 

* * *

 

The facility was old and empty. His footsteps carried down the long hallways and disturbed the rodents that had begun making their homes there.

He found the weapons locker and replenished his supply. The weight would slow his walking speeds, but not by much. Bucky knew that it was better to be armed in case he came across people driven to desperation by the conditions outside.

There were cans of food as well, two of which could conceivably be edible, but he passed them by. He did not need food to survive, or water.

Bucky found the command room after passing through the lab.

He had paused in the lab, his mind going white. He had left the lab, and it had been in shambles. His hands had ached, the sensors indicating where he should have been feeling pain, but he did not remember tearing the room apart.

But he had.

Bucky went to the main table and examined the old maps still spread over its surface. This place had been a final outpost during the War. It had been abandoned without thought for survivors finding it again.

The map had locations marked in red. Bucky found his place on the map and committed the entire picture to memory. The nearest marked base was over a hundred miles away, but it was the closest enemy base of the seven that were marked.

There had to be more, but the creators of this map could not know of them all. Even Bucky didn’t, and he had been tasked with finding and destroying many of them during—

_Not a base an orphanage of potential enemy recruits and it was burning he still had the lighter in his hand—_

Bucky shook his head.

“Stop.”

The images stopped. He checked the rest of the facility before exiting and found what he was expecting: nothing.

And then he walked.

 

* * *

 

He was ten miles from the third facility when he heard the voice. It was loud. Alive. Bucky darted into the trees and crept forward on silent feet, one hand already holding the pistol he kept in a holster on his thigh. The safety was off, and Bucky could aim and shoot in less than half a second.

But the voice gave no indication that its owner had noticed Bucky’s approach. After a beat, Bucky realized that the person was singing.

They were good at singing. Bucky didn’t recognize the song, but it was lively. It did not match their circumstances at all.

Bucky glanced down at his gun. He didn’t want to initiate contact with a weapon in hand, especially not with someone willing to sing alone. He holstered the gun and stepped into the clearing, his eyes landing on the man whittling a stick with an old pocket knife in the middle of it, the remains of a fire spread out before him.

The man kept singing. Bucky waited until he finished, realizing that the man was making a small statue from the stick. Even with his good vision, Bucky could not tell what the statue was. The shape was too rough.

He had to pick a language to communicate with. He went with the one the man had been singing in, latching onto that song as the best way to start a peaceful conversation.

“You’re not the worst singer I’ve ever heard.”

The man’s head shot up so quickly Bucky worried for his neck, and in a moment the man was on his feet, staring at Bucky with wide eyes. Bucky held up both hands, palms up to show they were empty, and then waved with a crooked smile.

“Hiya. Name’s Bucky.”

The man swallowed, glancing between Bucky and the statue in his hand for several seconds. Then he tossed the statue Bucky’s way, saying, “Catch.”

Bucky did, and the man continued staring. “You’re real.”

A logical conclusion. “Yeah. Here.” He tossed the statue back. From the rudimentary beak on it, Bucky concluded it was meant to be a bird of some kind. “Your name?”

The man looked taken aback, but he shook his head and cleared his throat. “Sorry. It’s—been a while. Since I’ve seen anyone. Uh. Sam. Sam Wilson.”

A surname. He had a family, then. Not a topic for prying. Bucky had already classified him as not a threat.

“What are you doing out here?” Bucky said instead.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“Traveling. Looking for someone. Anyone, really,” Bucky amended with a wry smile. “But one guy in particular.”

Sam raised one eyebrow. “Any luck?”

“Found you.”

“There is that. How do I know you’re not a threat?”

“You don’t.”

Sam nodded, slipping a gun back into the waistband of his pants. Bucky was inwardly impressed; the motion was smooth and natural. Sam clearly had some military background. He wasn’t all that old, either. Perhaps in his thirties, maybe even late twenties.

“Well, Bucky,” Sam said, “I don’t have much to offer, but you’re the first person I’ve seen in months.” He grimaced. “Which sounds even worse than I thought, now that I've said it out loud.”

Bucky’s lips twitched.

Sam was a good man. Bucky wouldn’t mind his company.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Sam didn’t mind Bucky’s company either. They agreed to travel together after a day of casual conversation, and as they went Bucky learned several important facts about Sam.

He was a soldier from one of the many small nations caught up in the war. His family and traveling group had been separated months before over differences Sam didn’t elaborate on.

He owned a pair of wings, solar-powered, that made scouting the third facility far easier than Bucky could have hoped.

He had a sharp wit and a good sense of humor that had the stores of memories in Bucky’s mind shivering.

He enjoyed carving, but was awful at it. He admitted his lack of talent freely.

In return Bucky admitted he was also a soldier, left to wander when his base was abandoned.

He did not mention that he was the one who had laid waste to the facility in blind rage when his memories returned enough to make him realize everything was wrong. Everything had broken soon after that, and the people had disappeared in the wind.

After they looked through the third facility—empty, but the traps there had nearly cost Bucky a foot—Sam found out that Bucky was not human.

But he didn’t run.

“It isn’t my place to ask or judge,” Sam said. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here. If not, I’ll still be here.”

It was…strange. To have someone else to talk to, to interact with. Bucky began to ease up slowly, and every mile became easier with Sam at his side.

The fourth facility was far, and Bucky had to stop more often than he was used to because Sam was human. He required sleep, and food.

Bucky took to hunting, using his superior speed and senses to catch whatever game he came across. Sam turned out to be an incredible cook, though Bucky ate the food out of curiosity rather than necessity. His systems would break down whatever he swallowed and store the resulting energy for emergencies.

“You’re ridiculous and I hate you,” Sam grumbled one morning when Bucky shook him awake.

He was not a morning person when morning came before the sun. After the sun, he was far more energetic. And in fantastic shape, because he put up with the walking with no complaint.

“So, this person you’re looking for,” he said when they found the fourth facility, “are they important to you?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, dropping down from the broken vent in the ceiling and bending his knees on impact. There were no signs of anyone in the hallway, so he signaled the all clear to Sam. He dropped down a moment later, and Bucky caught him so he didn’t hit the ground too hard. “I don’t know it he’s still alive.”

A myriad of emotions flickered across Sam’s face, too fast for Bucky to interpret. “And if he isn’t?”

Bucky didn’t want to think about that. “I don’t know.”

Sam made a noise that Bucky couldn’t interpret.

They moved carefully, mindful of the traps they had encountered in the previous facility.

This facility was far bigger. The security systems were offline from disuse and neglect, but some power still remained. Bucky found flashlights and gave one to Sam. They were not powered by batteries, but Bucky didn’t have the patience to take them apart and figure out their source.

Sam whistled when he directed his light down an elevator shaft after Bucky forced open the doors. “This place is huge.”

“Up or down?” Bucky asked. They had entered on the first floor, but the building was stacked like a staircase upon itself. Sam glanced around and then shrugged.

“Down. Get the worst bits over with.”

Losing the light from the windows would be unfortunate, but Bucky could see fine in the dark. It would be best to go before their flashlights ran out as well, if they would run out at all.

Getting down was tricky, as sections of the stairs were crumbling, but they made it to the very bottom floor after hours of exploration. At one point, they found an old kitchen, and Sam prepared a quick dinner with some of the preserved foodstuffs. He hummed while doing so, taking obvious pleasure in his work.

Bucky did not hum, but he was content to listen.

The bottom floor was so dark that even Bucky was having difficulty seeing without the lights. Sam stayed close, and they checked each room methodically.

“Not to say this is unsettlingly creepy,” Sam said, “but this is unsettlingly creepy.”

Bucky agreed.

They kept searching until Bucky found the door.

It was solid, with big metal hinges and signs in four languages describing security clearance. Bucky’s security clearance consisted of his arms, and he spent five minutes forcing the door open while Sam kept watch.

The room beyond the door had power. Emergency lights flickered to life, bathing the walkway in soft blue while Bucky and Sam walked over the grates, their lights off while they took in the new room.

“Must be on its own generator,” Sam said. “Or something. Damn. How old is this place?”

Very old, Bucky knew. But he just shook his head and kept moving.

It took them three minutes of walking through small corridors to find the big room. When Bucky entered, he stopped, and Sam ran into his back.

“Ow, man, what is it?”

Sam stepped to his right and saw what Bucky could see. “Oh.”

There were people in what were unquestionably cryo tubes, two of them.

Bucky strode forward, his gaze fixed on the closest tube and the man inside it.

“Are they—shit, are they alive?” Sam said, his voice suddenly small in the large space. Bucky looked for the computers and carefully booted them up. He sucked in a breath as the vitals feed came up.

“Yes.”

“Holy hell,” Sam said. “Who are they?”

Bucky read the woman’s name—Natalia. He could not bring himself to speak the other name. It took several seconds of controlled breathing to manage it.

“Steve. Steve Rogers.”

_Found you._

Bucky’s knees gave out and he fell, relief overwhelming him so completely that tears leaked from his eyes and he could not speak for nearly four minutes.

“I’m guessing,” Sam said once Bucky indicated he was okay, “that this is the guy you were looking for.”

Bucky nodded.

“You could have told me you were looking for a war hero.”

 

* * *

 

While Bucky figured out how to bring the two people safely out of cryosleep, Sam told him about the stories he had heard as a child growing up. Stories of the hero known as Steve Rogers, who was out there fighting for their rights and freedom every day. How he went against the enemy fearlessly, battling even the monster known as the Winter Soldier, who had laid waste to countless allies.

Bucky did not have memories of those confrontations. He paused and counted to ten before resuming. He did not want to damage the equipment.

“To think they froze him,” Sam said, and shook his head. The thought did not need completing. Bucky understood.

It took Bucky two hours to be confident in his ability to work the machines. Once he and Sam made sure the area was secure, Bucky began the defrosting process.

 

* * *

 

Steve woke first. It was not waking, though, not really; he was semiconscious for several minutes while Sam and Bucky cleaned him off, and they put him on a small cot while he recovered. The woman was still unconscious when Steve became aware of his surroundings.

Bucky had not been expecting Steve to attack. He heard Sam’s shout but was more preoccupied with fending off Steve, and he wasn’t able to dodge the tackle and he hit the floor hard.

“Who are you?” Steve snarled, fist raised, and Bucky realized that he wasn’t fully aware, not really.

“Steve,” Bucky said, because he wanted Steve to recognize him. He made a weak gesture for Sam to stay back. “It’s—me. Bucky.” Steve scowled. “Please, Steve, look at me.”

Steve’s reaction to Bucky’s voice was visceral, to the point where he went completely still for four seconds before he said, in a very small voice, “Bucky?”

His whole body went warm and cold at the same time and he couldn’t control his face or voice anymore.

“Hey, Steve.”

 

* * *

 

Explaining everything took four hours. Halfway through that, the woman woke up. She was slippery, and only a combined effort from Sam and Bucky pinned her long enough for Steve to explain that they were not in danger.

Bucky found out she preferred the name Natasha. But a slip of Steve’s tongue finally had her appearance clicking in his memory.

She was the Black Widow. A notorious player of both sides. He had worked with her. And against her.

She recognized him, too. Tried to run, but again Steve kept her calm.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Bucky said. She stared at him for a long time.

“Okay,” she said.

And then he and Steve were talking again, and Bucky’s mind was whirling with possibility and relief and everything was in such a mix that he could barely think straight.

They were hours away from the facility, searching for the next because Steve said there were others in cryo, before Bucky even realized Steve hadn’t mentioned the times they fought.

 

* * *

 

It came up by accident two nights later. One of those freak slips of conversation that led to Steve pulling Bucky away from the fire, leaving Sam and Natasha out of earshot.

“It wasn’t you, Buck,” Steve said. But Bucky could see the pain buried in his eyes even though Steve was doing his best to hide it.

“The hell it wasn’t, Steve,” Bucky said. “I can’t even remember it, but it happened. I was your goddamn _enemy_. For years. We fought each other. I hurt you. Repeatedly.”

“You didn’t have a choice. And I’m okay. I healed.”

“You shouldn’t have had to heal!”

“But I’m okay!” Steve stepped closer and Bucky stepped back. “Good god, Buck, I’m not mad at you and I can’t stand to see you get mad at yourself. Please tell me what I can do to fix this.”

“You can’t fix it,” Bucky said. “There’s nothing about this you can fix.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bucky took off his jacket and shirt with robotic efficiency.

“Bucky, what are you—“

Steve stopped when he saw where the metal of the arm met skin. The scars were there, as always, but Bucky didn’t pay attention to them. He reached for his ribs.

And he pulled them open, peeling back the skin to reveal the metal underneath.  And he opened his chest, the panels sliding back to reveal the machines and motors where his insides had been.

“We can’t go back, Steve,” Bucky said, unable to look Steve in the eye. The parts inside him whirred far more audibly without the skin in the way. “This isn’t something you can fix.” And the words tumbled out, he couldn’t stop them, he didn’t try. “They scooped out my insides and replaced them with machines, they took my arm and made it theirs, they took _me,_ Steve, and they broke me. I broke. I. _Broke_. And they didn’t stop. They stole everything from me. My body. My mind. My humanity. It took me years to remember my name. More to remember who I was. And I couldn’t take it, Steve. I shut down. For years. This? The guy you’re talking to? He’s been around for less than two months.

“And he’s tired. He is so goddamn tired, and he can’t die! There are machines in me, and no matter what I do they fix me. And I can’t kill myself. I tried!   I tried so hard! But I couldn’t. And I found you through some miracle and I can’t—I just can’t. I can’t do this, I can’t think about it for too long because it hurts and I was so alone for so long. There was no one else, Steve. Just me, and my mind, and the thing they made out of me.”

Steve was silent for almost a minute. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, his eyes darting from Bucky’s chest to his face and back again. Bucky bit down on his tongue to keep from talking. He ignored the automatic pain feedback and tried to make eye contact, but his gaze kept sliding away.

“Bucky.”

Steve was hugging him, hard enough to click his chest closed again.

“I don’t know if this can be made right. What you went through…it’s not right. It can’t be undone, or forgiven.” Steve took a deep breath, his palms burning brands into Bucky’s back. “But Bucky, I swear to you I will do everything I can to help you. I will stay with you until the end of the line.” His words were so irritatingly sincere. “I swear it.”

Bucky brought his arms up. At first to push away, but then he wrapped his arms around Steve and pulled him closer, and even when machines had taken the place of his lungs he found he couldn’t breathe.

He drew in a shuddering breath. “Alright, pal.” He patted Steve on the back, feeling his chest heave. “Alright.”

 

* * *

 

 They found more people as they traveled. Most were in scattered groups, but some were setting up camp. Towns began to form in the wreckage of cities.

The facilities they came across were almost always empty, but some were not. They found an entire team Steve had worked with, all of whom reacted badly to Bucky, not that Bucky had expected anything else. He had fought all of them at one point. But Steve was there, and Natasha, and Sam. And as their group grew, the white spaces in Bucky’s head shrank.

He thought he was going to outlive all of them. But Steve had been enhanced as well, though in different ways, and some of the people they found had very long lifespans. The redhead and Sam did not, but they didn’t seem to mind.

Eventually they started helping the groups they came across. Bandits and gangs were growing as people began to recover. Bucky was more than happy to help discourage that behavior with his new friends at his side.

He didn’t know when it happened. If it had a point of origin at all. Or if it was a gradual thing, unable to be measured or pinned down. But Bucky woke up one day, with the universe spread out above him in the night sky, and realized he didn’t feel quite so hollow anymore.

He felt human.

 

 


End file.
